SLING 



SLOE 



509 



by rail. Pop. (1861) 13,361 ; (1881) 10,808; (1891) 

 10,110. Sligo had its origin in a Dominican abbey, 

 built in the middle of the 13th century by Maurice 

 Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, and now in ruins, and 

 was formerly surrounded with walls and defended 

 by a castle (1242), of which no vestiges are now 

 left. There are a Roman Catholic cathedral, a 

 modern town-hall, a lunatic asylum, &c. The town 

 has some trade, exporting cattle, corn, butter, 

 and provisions. Steamers ply regularly between 

 Sli^'o and Glasgow, Liverpool, and Londonderry. 

 Slijjo was besieged by the parliamentarians in 

 1641, and was captured and lost again by the 

 adherents of William III. It formerly returned 

 a member to parliament, but was disfranchised in 

 1870. 



See county histories by T. O'Rorke (1889) and W. G. 

 Vood-Martin (3 voU. 1890-93). 



Sling, a weapon much in use before the intro- 

 duction of firearms, consisted of a piece of leather, 

 with a round hole in the middle and at each end 

 ;i cord of about a yard in length. The slinger 

 held the free ends of the cords in one hand, and 

 whirling the weapon round and round with his 

 utmost force in a vertical direction, suddenly let 

 go one of the cords. This propelled the stone 

 or other missile that was placed in the leather 

 at a great speed forwards for a considerable 

 distance. Slings fastened to the end of a short 

 pole were capable of discharging a bolt with such 

 force that at 500 yards distance it could pierce a 

 helmet or a thin shield. The sling is not men- 

 tioned in the Iliad, but already in the Persian 

 wars we find traces of it- use. The Acharnians, 

 and later the Actueans were the most skilful, but 

 amongst all ancient races the Balearic islanders 

 were counted the most expert ; and the sling was 

 a favourite weapon of several semi-savage peoples, 

 notably the Tahitians in the Pacific. They were 

 used by the besiegers during the defence of Cnitral ; 

 see Sir G. S. Robertson's Ckitral ( 1898). 



Slip, in a dockyard, is a smooth inclined plane, 

 sloping down to the water, on which a ship is ouilt. 

 It requires a very solid foundation. For the repair 

 of ships of comparatively moderate size slips were 

 designed by Mr T. Morton, Leith, and consist of a 

 carriage with blocks, as in a graving-dock, working 

 on an inclined railway extending for some distance 

 beyond high-water to a sufficient depth below low- 

 water of spring tides to enable vessels to be floated 

 on the carriage. When the vessel is floated over 

 the cradle powerful hauling gear, worked by steam 

 or other power, is set in motion to draw the ship 

 out of the water. At the Tyne, for example, the 

 .slipway is 1000 feet in length, and a hundred 

 vessels yearly are repaired on it. Slipways are 

 useful adjuncts to shipping purls, and for vessels 

 up to 2500 tons register they are better than a dry- 

 dock, as better light is afforded for making repairs, 

 and no pumping is needed ; but this size is nearly 

 the limit, though there is no good reason, if the slip 

 and gearing be made strong enough, why larger 

 vessels may not use slipways. See DOCK, SHIP- 

 BUILDING. 



Sliven (Turk. Islimut), or SEUMNIA, a town of 

 South Bulgaria (Eastern Roiimelia), at the southern 

 IP;UHI- of the Balkan Mountains, 70 miles N. by E. 

 of Adrianople, is celebrated for its annual fair. 

 Arms, cloth, and attar of roses are manufactured. 

 Pop. (1888)20,893; (1893)23,210. 



Sloane. SIR HANS, physician and naturalist, 

 was born at Killyleagh, County Down, 16th April 

 1660, the son of an Ulster Scot. He devoted him- 

 elf to natural history and medicine, and in spite 

 of an attack of haemoptysis, which lasted from 

 his sixteenth till his nineteenth year, he arrived 

 in London in 1679 a well-read student. His appren- 



ticeship to Stafforth, a pupil of Stahl, and his 

 friendship with Boyle and Kay did much to en- 

 courage and advance him in his favourite studies. 

 In France he attended the lectures of Tournefort 

 and Duverney, and obtained on his return, by the 

 active support of Sydenham, a footing in London 

 as a physician. Already F.R.S. , he spent over a 

 year (1685-86) in Jamaica, collecting a herbarium 

 of 800 species ; and after his return became phy- 

 sician to Christ's Hospital (1694-1724), President 

 of the College of Physicians ( 1719-35), Secretary to 

 the Royal Society (1693), Foreign Associate of the 

 French Academy (1708), and Sir Isaac Newton's 

 successor as President of the Royal Society ( 1727 ). 

 He had been created a baronet and physician- 

 general to the army in 1716, and in 1727 was 

 appointed royal physician. Though of remarkably 

 delicate constitution, he lived to the great age of 

 ninety-two, dying at Chelsea, llth January 1753. 

 His museum and library of 50,000 volumes and 

 3560 MSS., offered at his death to the nation for 

 20,000, formed the commencement of the British 

 Museum ( q. v. ). He contributed numerous memoirs 

 to the Philosophical Transactions, and published 

 in 1745 a treatise on medicine for the eyes. But 

 his great work was the Natural Hittory of Jamaica 

 (fol. 1707-25). 



Sloe, or BLACKTHORN (Prunus spinosa), a 

 shrub of the same genus with the plum, and per- 

 haps really of the same species with it and the 

 bullace. It is generally a shrub of 4 to 10 feet 

 high, but some- 

 times becomes 

 a small tree of 

 15 to 20 feet. 

 It is much 

 branched, and 

 the branches 

 terminate in 

 spines. The 

 youngest shoots 

 are covered with 

 a fine down. 

 The flowers are 

 small, snow- 

 white, and 

 generally ap- 

 pear before the 

 leaves. The 

 fruit is ovate, or 

 almost globose, 

 pale blue with 

 blackish bloom, 

 and generally 

 about the size 

 of the largest 

 peas. The sloe 

 is abundant in 

 thickets and borders of woods and hedgerows every- 

 where in Britain and almost all parts of Europe. 

 The shoots make beautiful walking-sticks. Being 

 spiny, the sloe is sometimes planted as a fence 

 against cattle; but the roots having a habit of 

 spreading and sending up suckers, hedges of it are 

 troublesome to keep from encroaching on the fields. 

 The bark is bitter, astringent, and tonic. The 

 flowers, with the calyx, are purgative, and were 

 once a favourite domestic medicine. The leaves 

 are used for adulterating tea. The unripe fruit 

 dyes black. The fruit, which is very austere, may 

 be made into a preserve ; and from it a kind of 

 brandy may be extracted. An astringent extract 

 of it, called German Acacia, was once much em- 

 ployed in cases of diarrhoea. The juice has been 

 used to impart roughness to port wine and in the 

 fabrication of spurious port. The sloe of the 

 southern United States (P. umbellata) haa a 

 pleasant black or red fruit. 



Sloe ( Prunus spinosa ) : a, fruit. 



